1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of electronic communication. More specifically, the invention relates to associating electronic messages with elements of data.
2. Background Art
With the advent of the Internet and the increased ease of communications and access to data, systems, and applications not locally stored or run, interoperability between disparate systems and applications has become a key goal for corporate entities. Application integration is being attempted in various guises, all with the intent of increasing productivity and easing work flow, thus reducing the overall costs of doing business.
The most widely used sets of applications on the Internet are those that facilitate communication, with e-mail, chat, and instant messaging being examples that readily come to mind. Increasingly however, other messaging formats such as video and voice communications are moving to Internet hardware, software, and communication protocols for their standard delivery systems. As the present inventors have identified, messaging systems are among those that may provide the greatest benefits by being integrated with other applications.
Traditional Approaches to Messaging Integration
Currently, little has been done to integrate messaging systems with other functionality and data in meaningful ways. Most messaging integrations today exist as one-to-one plug-in functionality created for specific messaging paradigms, such as those created for integration with Microsoft Outlook™. While these integrations are useful in their limited arenas, they lack a critical feature; none of them solve the problem of context driven work flow management.
Traditional Approaches to Context Driven Work Flow Management
The term “work flow” is used to represent the order in which activities associated with a project are completed. Traditionally, work flow has been linked to the content of individual messages through human agents. What is missing from prior art messaging systems is the ability to describe the relationship of an incoming message to previously existing data stored in a data system or context external to the messaging system itself.
For example, suppose a salesperson is using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software package to track workflow, and via a separate e-mail application, the salesperson receives an e-mail expressing interest in the product the salesperson is selling. Current messaging solutions do not have the capability to derive data from the e-mail and compare it with the data located in the CRM system to alert the salesperson that this particular e-mail has been sent by a repeat customer wishing to place a large order. Perhaps the customer desires a rush job, but because the e-mail is not distinguished in any meaningful way from any of the other many, many e-mails the salesperson may encounter in a given day, the salesperson may not give the e-mail the attention it deserves. A sale may be lost or the entire business generated by that customer may be given to another company, because there is no automated way in the prior art to associate the content of the message with the work flow data stored in the CRM system.